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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  A child bride goes to school
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A child bride goes to school

In Rajasthan, up close with a 14-year-old girl whose marriage at the age of 10 months was annulled last year

A former child bride at Rabariyawas village, Rajasthan. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/MintPremium
A former child bride at Rabariyawas village, Rajasthan. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

It’s the monsoon in Rabariyawas, 30-odd kilometres from Jodhpur, and every few feet there is a dancing peacock. Chinkaras dot the landscape, either grazing peacefully in the distance or leaping across the road leading to the village. There are the shepherds dressed in local garb, perhaps one of Rajasthan’s most enduring images, tending to their flock. As far as pastoral scenes go, you couldn’t ask for a better one.

In the first house you see as you enter the village lives a 14-year-old class XI student. It’s 3pm and the teenager (name withheld) has just returned from school. The rest of the day will go in schoolwork and in helping out her mother, Bhanwari Devi, with household chores. On the surface, there is nothing really to distinguish her from any other schoolgirl in Rajasthan. But on 18 April 2015, the family court in Jodhpur annulled a child marriage that had taken place more than 13 years ago. It was the fastest annulment on record—the case had been filed only two days earlier. The teenager, who had been married when she was 10 months old, was the petitioner.

In Rajasthan, the death of a family member is marked by three ceremonies spread over 12 days. The last of these, mausar, held on the 12th day, consists of a feast in honour of the deceased. It is a widely held belief that if weddings are held on this day, it leads to a cleansing of the house. The teenager’s wedding was solemnized on the mausar of her great-grandmother. Her elder sister Mamta, now 20, and brother Ashok, now 18, were married off on the same day too. Ashok’s marriage was annulled too. Mamta’s case is still being heard. “My husband was in the army and posted out. And as a woman I had no say. I was helpless to stop this from happening," says Bhanwari Devi.

“I was 11 when I learnt about the wedding and to be honest, it did not really register just what a big deal it was. My sister, however, was old enough to understand and was horrified," says the teenager. Mamta is a second-year paramedical student at Jodhpur’s Dr Sampurnanand Medical College. “First I tried to find out more about the boy, what he does, what is his family like. Nothing I heard was encouraging. He had dropped out of school, started drinking, whereas I had so many dreams. I wanted to study, I wanted to pursue a career," says Mamta. She tried to convince her parents to call off the match, but they were reluctant. All the 14-year-old remembers of those days is the sight of Mamta crying. That is when she decided that this was not for her either.

According to the International Centre for Research on Women, one-third of girls in the developing world are married before the age of 18. One in nine are married before the age of 15. A 2014 Unicef report states that almost half of all child brides worldwide live in South Asia. Out of these, one in three are in India. A 9 March 2015 article, “India’s 13 Million Child Brides, Their 6 Million Children", from data journalism website India Spend tells us that Uttar Pradesh has the largest number of married children (2.8 million), followed by Bihar and Rajasthan (1.6 million each).

It’s not as if the Union government is not aware of the problem. In 1929, the Child Marriage Restraint Act, which set the minimum age of marriage for men as 18 and women as 15, was introduced. In 2006, the Union government enacted the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act—this time, the focus was on prohibition rather than restraint. “The law is in place to prohibit such weddings. But what about those who are already married off as children and then want a reprieve? The wedding which is solemnized is not considered illegal, it is the act of getting children married which is considered so," explains Kriti Bharti from Jodhpur’s Saarthi Trust, a non-governmental organization that works with child brides.

In 2012, Lakshmi Sargara of Luni village approached the Saarthi Trust for help. She too was a child bride. That’s when Bharti found a useful provision in the 2006 Act, which eventually helped Sargara, then 18, get an annulment. “There is an option to void the marriage till two years after reaching adulthood. Minors too can seek annulment," explains Bharti. According to her, Sargara is the first girl to have gotten an annulment under the provision that was introduced in the 2006 Act. Her story was included by the Central Board of Secondary Education in a textbook on human rights and gender studies for classes XI and XII.

Though the provision allows for a clean and legal end to such alliances, child marriage is a well-established tradition that flourishes with the complicity of the entire community. Dissolution is possible but has to be mediated through the jaati panchayat (council of headmen) and usually carries a hefty monetary fine, and fear of ostracization by the larger community.

Santadevi Meghwal, a 20-year-old from Rohicha Kallan village, has had to struggle with all of this. A final-year BA student at Jodhpur’s Kamla Nehru College for Women, she had to endure years of pressure to acquiesce to her wedding, which took place when she was 11 months old. “The jaati panchayat wanted us to submit a fine of 16 lakh if I wanted to end it. My father is a poor farmer with small landholdings. Where could we have got the money from?" she says.

All the girls Mint Lounge interviewed admitted to being baffled by how such life-altering decisions are taken without their wishes being taken into consideration. “Don’t I have dreams? Don’t I have ambitions? How can elders decide, that too when I was a baby, that this will be my life? I refuse to submit," says the 14-year-old. She is luckier than most in that she never had to undergo a gauna (when the girl goes to live with her husband, usually around puberty).

“The boy’s father was a former army man himself and agreed that this wasn’t right. Agar marzi nahi hai, to life kaise chalegi (if they’re not willing, how will they spend their life together)?" explains Bhanwari Devi, who speaks in Marwari, but litters it with Hindi words in order to explain better. The family, she says, is still being threatened by Mamta’s in-laws, who are fighting the annulment.

Mint had reported on the plight of child brides in 2015, profiling a couple of girls from Pali. These girls had chosen to walk out of their marriages after enduring years of physical and verbal abuse. According to Bharti, child marriage encompasses every kind of abuse against women. “Sexual exploitation, being overworked, domestic violence—these girls endure it all. And while they still talk about physical and verbal abuse, sexual trauma is something they barely open up about," she says.

The law clearly states that any person who facilitates, attends, participates and solemnizes child marriages could face rigorous imprisonment of up to two years and a fine of up to 1 lakh. Women are exempt from imprisonment under this Act.

Child marriage has also been shown to have a direct impact on infant and material mortality rates. Different state governments have launched aggressive campaigns to create awareness about the law and discourage child marriage. In July, Rajasthan’s department of women and child development, along with Unicef and UNFPA, launched a joint campaign called Child Marriage-free Rajasthan.

But the results of initiatives like these are at best mixed. The Annual Health Survey of 2013, conducted by the Union government, found that over 14% of the girls in Rajasthan were married before they turned 18. According to the 2011 census report, around 102.61 million women (India’s female population is upwards of 585 million) were married before they turned 18. The number was 119 million in the 2001 census.

All three girls interviewed admit that child marriages still take place—caste, economic hardships and patriarchy are dominant reasons. “I have seen such atrocities committed against women in the name of honour, pride and tradition. And few raise their voices. I want to be an IPS (police) officer so as to be able to contribute to ending this," says the 14-year-old.

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Published: 12 Aug 2016, 08:23 AM IST
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